Senate OKs bill requiring cameras in special ed classrooms

The Senate passed a measure Thursday that would require school districts to provide surveillance cameras in special education classrooms.

Senate Bill 1380 by Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, states that in order to promote student safety, a school district would be required to provide equipment for a school to place a video monitoring camera in a self-contained classroom for students with special needs. Written notice would be required to parents of students that would be taped in the classrooms. If passed, the bill would apply to the 2013-2014 school year.

Questions raised on the floor called the measure an “unfunded mandate” for school districts. This effort follows cases of alleged abuse that have sprung up around the state in recent years, creating a burgeoning grass-roots movement with some special education advocates and parents calling for cameras in self-contained classrooms.

Aldine Independent School District already has cameras in some classrooms, including the district’s alternative education placement and at its campus for severely disabled children. The Houston Independent School District recently installed cameras in some school buses and many campuses have cameras in hallways or common areas.

Cameras in the classroom, however, has proved to be a much more complicated, nuanced legal problem. There seems to be little traction with some school districts to make a change, advocates say.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that there is no expectation of privacy in public schools. The Texas Education Code says a district employee is not required to get a parent’s consent before making a videotape of a child to be used only for the purposes of safety, including discipline in common areas and buses, among other exceptions. It does not specifically say whether the “common area” applies to a classroom. The individual school district would have to make that determination.